


How To Train Your Vortisaur (and Other Invaluable Lessons I Learnt in the Holidays, by Theta Sigma)

by chinquix



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Academy Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:43:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinquix/pseuds/chinquix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the festival of Anmers Tonastide, and the students of the Academy have been sent home for the holidays. In the unused lower levels of the House of Lungbarrow, Theta unearths a hidden chamber, survives an aerial attack, and finds a new pet. Koschei is, understandably, horrified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Train Your Vortisaur (and Other Invaluable Lessons I Learnt in the Holidays, by Theta Sigma)

**Author's Note:**

> So this largely came about after it was brought to my attention that the Doctor rode a Vortisaur (a sort of Gallifreyan pterodactyl) in his youth. I'm afraid canon - or whatever passes for canon in Academy Era fics - is going to be a bit bumpy here, as the information I've used in regard to the Doctor and the Master's childhood comes from various conflicting sources, so please bear with me.

Theta Sigma was taking advantage of the holidays to thoroughly explore the House. Despite various attempts when he’d been younger, he’d never got very far in his investigations; there was always a Drudge around a corner to drag him back to his rooms, or Badger trailing behind him to ensure his activities were strictly educational. But now it was his first time back at Lungbarrow since starting at the Academy, and while he’d never be trusted completely in the eyes of his Cousins, they’d seemed to grant him rather more autonomy than before.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that the majority the House of Lungbarrow’s residents were too busy preparing for the Anmers feast right now to keep an eye on him.

 Now he was deep in the very roots of the House, having left the noise of the kitchens far behind, and loving the vibrant but subtle hum of life that surrounded him. In anyone else, the tightly-twisted organic walls of the corridors down here would have inspired discomfort and claustrophobia; in Theta, it inspired nothing but a new fascination with the nature of his ancestral home. He’d always been aware of Lungbarrow’s sentience, of course - it was just a part of life, after all, like the fact that the sky was orange and his hearts beat in tandem - but he’d never before felt its presence so keenly. That being said, Theta had never truly considered Lungbarrow his home and had spent much of his youth so far attempting to escape it. Yet he couldn’t help but think how much of a waste it was that the House’s richer qualities were, for the most part, ignored.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by the sound of running water, and he refocused his attention on his surroundings. The corridor he was currently traversing opened up either side of him whilst coming to an end a little way ahead, forcing him to stop for a moment in order to decide whether to turn left or right. The burbling of water was at its loudest here, and as he stepped forward he noted that the ground fell away in a harsh slope, creating a channel through which the water he’d heard was rushing. It had the scent of the outside about it, and every now and then small silver leaves floated on its surface. Further up the channel from where he was standing was a low arch in the wall, through which the water was emerging.

_Perhaps a tributary of the Cadonflood_ , Theta wondered to himself,  _passing through the mountains._ He’d had no idea there was such a thing here. Briefly glancing down either side of the tunnel he’d found himself in and seeing nothing of interest in either direction, he soon made up his mind. He pulled off his tunic and undershirt, throwing them to the ground, then removed his boots and rolled up his trousers before carefully making his way down the slope. When his bare feet entered the water he was startled by how cold it was, having expected it to be warmed by the suns outside. He continued down the slope until he was submerged up to his chest, and found he had to fight against the current. He forced himself upstream to the arch and lowered his head just enough to peer through it; it appeared to be the entrance to some sort of piping system that gradually narrowed until the water level reached the ceiling.

Well. He  _was_  exploring, after all.

Taking a deep breath and slowing his hearts so as to reduce oxygen demand - his respiratory bypass would take care of most of the whole ‘being underwater’ issue, but an extra precaution or two couldn’t hurt - he dived down and through the arch. It was more difficult than he’d anticipated to move forward against the water under here, but he pushed onwards, gripping the inside wall of the pipe for support. He felt the House hum through his fingers, but it didn’t seem to object to his current course - rather, he felt almost encouraged by it, which was a very odd sensation. 

Presently he felt the pipe widen around him - with the lack of light and sound, he’d been relying on forms of extrasensory perception to guide his way - and noted that the water was steadily increasing in temperature. When he reached his hand forward to grip onto the wall once more, his fingers met with nothing but the water; there was a hole where there should have been something solid.

_It’s the end of the pipe,_  he realised.  _This is where it opens out._ He’d have to swim into this hole if he hoped to see what lay on the other side, but the current here was far stronger, making it difficult to pass through. Not one to be so easily dissuaded, Theta drew on his more primal reserves of energy, the old strength that brought his ancestors through the desert storms and famine and war of Gallifrey’s youth. With a growl of exertion that sped away through the water as bubbles of oxygen, he heaved himself into and through to the space beyond, emerging on the other side, kicking for the surface and away from the pull of the current. His tawny head broke the water and he took a controlled breath so as not to overload his system, blinking to clear his eyes.

Then blinked once more in surprise.

He’d entered a vast circular chamber, flooded by the river. Concave walls flanked him all around, rising up as if to meet at the top, but the material of the walls there had fallen apart and left a ragged natural skylight. Through it he could see the fiery sky, criss-crossed with afternoon clouds. In the chamber itself, great red rock formations protruded into the water, creating tiny inlets and pools and, where sand and grit had gathered, minuscule bays in the crevices.

He swam over to one such crevice, hauling himself up and onto the rocks, feeling his skin start to dry almost immediately in the the heat that radiated from them. He settled himself, brushing away grit and leaves, and stared out upon his discovery with wide-eyed curiosity. 

Suddenly, an ear-splitting screech sounded, echoing round the chamber. Theta startled and jumped to his feet, saw a deep groove in the rock and scrambled into it for shelter, then scanned for the source of the sound. His eyes caught movement on the top of the ruined walls -  _there_ , a flash of rich blue. Gone. Then appearing again, further to the left. It stilled, allowing him to take in its awkward form; impossibly long and unstable legs hooked backwards to form wings that arched over a scaly feathered head. Theta’s eyebrows shot up in recognition as the creature was joined by another, then another, till a whole flock of the things were gathered above, preparing to dive.

He  _had_  to tell Koschei about this.

* * *

“—of course, Marnal. May I be introduced to your son? I hear he is particularly… _gifted_.”

Marnal lowered his head in acquiescence and turned with a smile, which faltered ever so slightly when he found his ‘particularly gifted’ son to be missing. Or at least, not where he’d left him.

“Ah. My most sincere apologies, Cardinal, but my son is currently absent. I may locate him, if you so wish…?”

“No, no, it’s not important, Castellan. I shall meet with him some other time.”

“Very well, my Lord,” Marnal said, then excused himself and wandered across the grand hall to the table where refreshments had been laid out. One of his Cousins was stood beside it, nursing a glass of Orneilian wine. “Isrith,” Marnal hissed at her, “where in Rassilon’s name has Koschei got to? I swear he was right behind me not 20 spans ago.”

“I haven’t seen him,” Isrith responded with disinterest. “He’s remarkably adept at disappearing, you know”

“I was aware of that, yes. Oh, _damn_  the boy, embarrassing me in front of the Cardinal like that…I’m too busy to deal with him now. I must prepare for tonight.” Muttering to himself, Marnal stalked away from the hall to the residential quarters of the House. Soon after, his vanished son emerged from the shadow of a low buttress and slipped after him, following at a distance with small silent steps before heading down a perpendicular corridor.

Congratulating himself on a fine escape, Koschei emerged victorious into his rooms, casting off the heavy robes he’d been encumbered with - though not without properly folding them away, of course; it would not do to damage such exquisite cloth - and tumbling to his bed. Elder Time Lords, he found, spoke rather freely when they were sure no one of importance was listening, and as a result he’d attained some rather useful spoils that afternoon. He knew, for instance, of the minor reforms that would take effect at the Academy when the students returned after Anmers Tonastide. A shift in focus, it would seem, to the practical alongside the theory, which Koschei found to be almost as unusual a concept as the idea that any reform would be approved in the first place. He would tell Theta about this later. No doubt it would excite him.

A  _hiss_ to the right of his headalerted him to the fact that he’d received a message, as a sleek screen slid up from the desk there, its elegant display rippling as circular words formed.  _‘Call from Lungbarrow’_  it read, and Koschei almost grinned. 

“Approved,” he said, and waved a hand lazily to start the video, then propped himself up on his elbows to better view the screen. Immediately Theta’s animated face flickered into being, distorted slightly - was he using a handheld communicator? - and accompanied by a fevered babbling that was all too familiar.

“—like you won’t  _believe_ , and you’ve just  _got_  to see this, Koschei, it’s quite brilliant—”

Koschei laughed not unkindly through his friend’s acclamation, which seemed to put him off, as he trailed off into silence.

“Theta, my dear, how many times must I tell you to wait for the call to be answered before speaking?” he teased, delighting in the sour expression his words prompted.

“It’s not my fault these useless contraptions have a delay on them,” Theta replied, all bruised pride. “You’d think, with all our technological advances, that we’d have overcome that minor issue, hm? But I’m forgetting myself. Koschei, I’ve found this…well, it’s  a chamber, I suppose, though not like any I’ve seen before, and you see—”

“Have you been swimming?” he interrupted, frowning at Theta’s hair slicked dark across his head.

“What?” His friend appeared confused, then realisation hit him, followed quickly on its heels by impatience. “Oh, yes, yes, but never mind that! I’m trying to tell you something important, Koschei, I do wish you’d stop butting in. This chamber, you see, it’s what’s inside it that’s important. And I need to show you—”

He was interrupted again, though this time by a grating screech on his end of the transmission. Koschei sat up immediately as he watched Theta duck, the image on the screen juddering as, no doubt, Theta jostled with the handheld comm. “Hello?” he asked sharply as the line went silent. Then there was a scuffling sound, and the screen went black, but not blank. “Theta?” he asked again, no longer light and teasing. “Theta, are you still there?” He hated the note of urgency that crept through in his voice, but this didn’t feel like a joke, this could really be something serious, his idiot friend may finally have met his death through reckless stunts, and Koschei  _hated_  not knowing—

“I’m— _kshh_ —I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m…in a hole, I suppose, but it’s alright, I can probably still get out, and I don’t think she meant to hurt me, she was probably just scared, really—”

“Theta, for the love of Rassilon!” Koschei near screamed with frustration, even as his relief flushed warm in his blood. “What’s going on? What are you talking about, you great fool, where  _are you?_ ” The image on the screen was still too dark to make out, as if Theta had plunged into a cave; the ‘hole’ he’d mentioned, most likely.

“I can’t— _fzz_ —the damn thing’s breaking up, I must have knocked it… _Rassilon’s ghost,_  I  _despise_  these things. Koschei, just— _ksssfk_ —it’s nearly lost power, look, I’m sending you a map and coordinates. I’m fine, really, but I want you to see this, you need to come here. Just follow the— _fffffskrsssssf._ ”

The screen whirred in dismay as the sound cut out, and Koschei growled along with it. He quickly checked the files, and noted that he’d received Theta’s coordinates; somewhere in the bowels of Lungbarrow, it looked like. He quickly transferred the data to his own comm, then deliberated for a moment. If he made his way to the front of the House, he’d be caught immediately. Finding no other alternative, and not wishing to waste any more time, he leapt from his window - thankfully on only the first floor of the House - and hit the ground at a run.

No amount of assurance from Theta would convince him that his friend was, indeed, ‘fine’. In his experience, Theta’s definition of the word tended to differ drastically to everyone else’s or, indeed, the actual definition itself. Of the situation, he could discern this; Theta was trapped, Theta was under attack, and Theta was the most ridiculous idiot Gallifrey had ever produced.

When he found that boy, he was going to scream so loudly at him his future regenerations would hear it.


End file.
